ABSTRACT
Picture two images, both of a native title claim area. The first is a map of the claim area, demarcated by latitude and longitude. The areas that cannot be claimed are marked with hatching. There are Crown reservation numbers, and a scale in kilometres – in fact, all the things we expect in a tenure map.1 The other image is a painting on canvas, in a form that westerners have labelled ‘dot painting’. Yet both address similar concerns, albeit expressed through different cultural lenses: in Western legal terms, jurisdiction, territory and ownership; for the Pila Nguru – the creators of the painting – the Tjukurrpa.2
